Homeschooling Statistics Worth Noting

Looking to market to the homeschool community? Knowing some homeschooling statistics will help you reach homeschool families more effectively.

Homeschool families are looking for quality educational products and services to benefit their child’s education.

Homeschool families tend to be larger than the average American family.

With additional mouths to feed, value and affordability is extremely important to parents when choosing resources, products and services for their home school.

Home educators are looking to save not only money on their homeschooling expenses, but need to save time as well. Most home educators school more than one child and may have little ones at home too.

Homeschooling parents are very resourceful and have little time to waste. (Time is definitely of the essence!)

Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

One Income Families

Most homeschooling families live on one income. One parent (most often the mother, but many dads homeschool) chooses to forfeit their career to stay at home and educate their children.

Reasons for Homeschooling Vary

According to recent homeschooling statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics (http://nces.ed.gov/nhes/homeschool/#sec4), the reasons for parents choosing to homeschool vary, but two factors were influential in their decision...

"Nearly two-thirds of homeschooled students had parents who said that their primary reason for homeschooling was either concern about the environment of other schools or a desire to provide religious or moral instruction."

Homeschooling is Growing in all Demographics

Dr Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute reveals:

"A demographically wide variety of people homeschool – these are atheists, Christians, and Mormons; conservatives, libertarians, and liberals; low-, middle-, and high-income families; black, Hispanic, and white; parents with Ph.D.s, GEDs, and no high-school diplomas."

When I met Dr Ray this past spring, he informed me that homeschooling continues to increase in all demographics. You may find this as interesting as I did.

Homeschooling is growing by 25% among Blacks, 35% among Whites and by 44% among Low Income Earners. Homeschooling is also growing among Hispanics.

Other Interesting Homeschooling Statistics

Other statistics provided by Dr Ray are:

• "Homeschooling may be the fastest-growing form of education in the United States (at 7% to 12% per year). Home-based education is also growing around the world in many nations.

• There are about 2 million homeschool students in the United States. There were an estimated 1.9 to 2.4 million children (in grades K to 12) home educated during 2005-2006 in the United States.

• Families engaged in home-based education are not dependent on public, tax-funded resources for their children’s education. The finances associated with their homeschooling likely represent over $16 billion that taxpayers do not have to spend since these children are not in public schools

• Homeschooling is quickly growing in popularity among minorities. About 15% of homeschool families are non-white/non-Hispanic (i.e., not white/Anglo)."

For more information on homeschooling statistics, you may want to visit Dr Ray’s website (http://www.nheri.org).

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